In one corner — Michael Chow, aka “Mr. Chow,” the creator and owner of the eponymous chain of upscale Chinese restaurants.

In the other — Philippe Chow, 53, a former Michael Chow disciple (and no relation) who went out on his own seven years ago. With the financial backing of restaurateur Stratis Morfogen and several famous athletes, he opened similarly swanky Asian cuisine restaurants intended to compete with Mr. Chow in New York, Los Angeles and South Beach.

Economic analysis of a local, family-run bread bakery is the topic of the latest dispatch from Yoram Bauman, our temporary economist-in-residence in China. Using his improving language skills and a visit to the local Wu-Mart, he estimates the small shop's production, profit and costs.

The Chinese government has stepped up efforts to make data on the country's air quality more transparent, including allowing the public to tour the country's pollution monitoring centre.

It is a rare bow to public pressure, as citizens have been complaining of hugely underestimated rates of pollution.

Many experts say the government has not taking enough steps to fight the "hazardous" problem, caused mainly by the usage of fossil fuels, which many of China's nearly 1.4 billion residents rely on for energy.

The world's largest annual human migration is nearing its climax as Chinese New Year approaches. Millions of workers from the countryside are returning home from Chinese communities around the world prepare for their main public holiday. Duration: 00:43

In 2010, I spent a month at the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Studies (STIAS) as a research fellow.

That month was the best my brain has ever spent in any place. I was like a child in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory because I had the opportunity to engage with scholars and intellectuals from home and abroad, including a scholar who had written on the topic I was there to research, that is, historical memory and politics in postapartheid South Africa. Do not panic -- I am not about to go heavy on you so early in the year with a treatise on historical memory. I will reserve that for Easter.

2012/01/20

"Contrast our approach with China‘s. China astutely has assured its future supply of oil and other energy resources. Over the past decade, the Chinese have gone around the world negotiating long-term supply deals. The U.S., instead, has rejected an oil supply laid at our doorstep. Which nation is making better preparations to be the superpower of the future?"

In hopes of instilling some sense of order, Chinese law requires drivers to attend a driving school before passing a written test. As a result, thousands of driver training schools, charging as much as 8000 yuan ($1300), have mushroomed across Beijing,

"These findings suggest that the beneficial effects of coffee consumption on type 2 diabetes mellitus may be partly due to the ability of the major coffee components and metabolites to inhibit the toxic aggregation of hIAPP (human islet amyloid polypeptide)," Ling Zheng, professor of cellular biology at Wuhan University in China, and colleagues wrote.

Can coffee really thwart type 2 diabetes?USA TODAY... be partly due to the ability of the major coffee components and metabolites to inhibit the toxic aggregation of hIAPP (human islet amyloid polypeptide)," Ling Zheng, professor of cellular biology at Wuhan University in China, and colleagues wrote.

About 250 million Chinese internet users, or nearly half of China's online population of 513 million, signed up on Weibo, up from 63 million a year ago. The spread of smart phones accelerates the fast adoption of Weibo, now more popular than emails. ...China's Weibo Guru, Kai-fu LeeForbes

What began as sideline kung fu slapstick goofiness after he was drafted in '92 eventually spawned the godawful Shaq Fu videogame, and a visit to Henan province's Shaolin Temple in 2009. The Quotatious Big Aristotle even declared that he would try to

Linfen, located at the heart of the Shanxi Province, is one of the mining centres that have been central to China's rapid economic growth. It is an endless landscape of factories and smoking towers, which is constantly emptied by thousands of trucks, taking its coal to the rest of China's cities. Linfen, as Ailun Yang from Greenpeace China points out, is the dark side of China's economic miracle. "There's something fundamentally wrong with the economic model. That's why the more the economy grows, the more the environment starts to get worse." Not only is the air toxic, but the water is so polluted that many towns in the area have become so-called 'Cancer Towns'. "Many illnesses are common to this area: pesticide exposure, high blood pressure, heart disease, lung problems..." But for the 4 million inhabitants of Linfen, it was only 20 years ago that their city was nicknamed 'The fruit and flower town of Shanxi Province'.The environmental impact of coal exploitation has destroyed the environment and with no way back the people of Linfen are paying a high price for China's economic progress.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a pre-recorded Chinese NewYear's well-wishes, in Mandarin, in a bid to tighten Israel's tieswith the world's most populous nation. In a video posted on YouTube,the PM expressed his hope for closer relations between Jerusalem andBeijing. Netanyahu said he was certain that the Chinese people wouldcontinue to amaze the world with their progress and prosperity in thecoming year. The video will be distributed with the help of China'snews agency and is expected to be watched by millions of people viasocial networks.

Out of 350 million people world-wide infected with hepatitis B about 130 million live in China and that is almost the equivalent of the combined population of France and the United Kingdom.

Although there are no clear transmission paths for the disease in China, it is widely acknowledged that the three most common cause of infection is through contaminated blood transfusion, mother to child and sexual contacts. Awareness of the disease among the general public and health workers are even lower than that of HIV and AIDS.

Hepatitis B sufferers face severe discrimination in China in virtually all aspects of work and life. As recent as 2009, many Chinese employers require employees to have their blood tested for HBV (hepatitis virus) and most of those who tested positive would be told to leave their job. Even Chinese universities and some kindergarten were known to refuse entry to students who are infected with the disease.

Since October 2009, the Chinese Health Ministry has abolished mandatory testing for Hepatitis B for students, workers and even government employees. This is the result of pressure from the public, health advocates and activists rather than an acknowledgement of the problem and a genuine desire to raise public awareness. However, this still doesn't stop illegal blood testing and discrimination by many Chinese organisations and businesses as many of these laws are unenforced. In the same year, the Chinese government also pushed forward a free hepatitis B vaccination policy for all children under the age of 15. Unfortunately, this policy neglects children in the vulnerable age group from 16 - 18.

For the adults infected with the disease, there are no clear-cut and cost effective treatments available to them. Many have to pay for these regular treatments with no support from the state or the health care system. This means that financially challenged patients have to abandon the treatment once they are unable to continue paying for it. The only way an infected person can get free medical treatment is if they are also infected with HIV.

-uh oh, Drogba might play for Shenhua. Having allowed opposition teams to sail through the Shanghai backline with relative ease at times, the team is in desperate need of the sort of capable defensive players who are neither cheap nor freely available within Chinese football. ...

Such a display in China would be nearly impossible right now, given Beijing's tight grip on citizens' online activities. "Only an American company could protest the way Wikipedia or Google has to the government," said Zhao Jing, a closely followed

The Untouchables have fingered the collar of a Chinese computer programmer claiming he stole more than $10 million worth software from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Bo Zhang, 32, from New York, worked as a contract programmer at the bank and ...

-Come on don't fight over buddha... there's enough of buddha to go around.

And the bizarre snafu of the fake agreement with UNIDO was simply another example, apparently, of the inscrutability of Chinese espionage. This week, Beijing's special representative Dai Bingguo is in New Delhi hoping to flag off a "golden period" for ...China vs. India: the battle for BuddhaGlobalPost

King: Oil Will Be Sent to China if the Keystone XL Pipeline isn't Built. Wednesday, January 18 ... "If we block it, that oil will certainly go to China. It will enrich their ...steveking.house.gov/index.php?...

Here in Shanxi province, the townships appear to have been shaded for gritty effect. They get sootier as we move inland. Ah yes, coal-mining territory. The man in the booth opposite has shadows under his eyes from working around these parts.

For many, the festival will be simply a reason to eat traditional Chinese dishes, including the delectable General Tso's Chicken, followed by tasty fortune cookies. For some, however, it will be a day to reflect on the achievements of Chinese

For people of a certain generation, Ken Hom is the man who moved Britain's love affair with Chinese food out of the takeaway and into our own kitchens. Few home cooks in the early 1980s would have believed they could recreate exotic Chinese dishes at

-Quick have babies!!! Chinese people are preparing to say good-bye to the Year of the Rabbit and welcome the Year of the Dragon. It's considered particularly lucky to be born in a Dragon year - so for a lot of parents-to-be, it's going to be an exciting 2012.

-“I was stripped naked and made to kneel on the ground while plainclothes policemen pelted me with blows to the head and body, slapped me, made me slap myself, bent my fingers backward, kicked me in the chest, and stomped on me,” Yu told a press conference in Washington on Wednesday.Dissident Writer Describes Abuse:

Kirti Rinpoche Chief Abbot of the Kirti Monasteries in Tibet
1 hour talk and video phone conference originally took place in November 16, 2011
"No Han was harmed in the self immolation..."
"There have been 11 official immolation since last March."

Gary Locke is Washington's ambassador to Beijing. He took over the post after Jon Huntsman left to run for president. Locke is the first US ambassador to China to have ancestral roots in that country. Ambassador Locke talks to Steve Inskeep about his ...Locke: China Is A Country Of Great ContrastsNPR

"I see more and more Chinese cultural activities happening in the US." SAFA was also invited to participate in the annual Times Square ball-drop celebration on Dec 31.The dragon swoops StatesideChina Daily

By Jim Fischer But the Chinese-born and -raised Wu never seems to be in China for the Chinese New Year celebration. "It's funny," she said. "You think it would happen some time. But it's great to be a part of this celebration. ...ProMusica celebrates Chinese New YearThisWeekNews

Things are slowing down, and it ... Ben speaks both Mandarin and Arabic and has traveled extensively in Asia and the Middle East. As such, he has an inside look on ... "A look at major city clusters around the country shows that property sales have collapsed in areas centered on Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou," he writes, "even as they remain steady in places such as Chongqing, Hefei and Shenyang." Ben continues: "My own ...The Daily Reckoning

-Gary Locke in hot water, he won't be so popular on Sina Weibo anymore! Earlier, US Ambassador Gary Locke claimed China's human rights situation is getting worse – an allegation flatly denied by the Beijing government. "China's strides and achievements have been well known to all. Over 80 per cent of the Chinese people are ...China charges a dissident for writing freedom poemTelegraph.co.ukTelegraph.co.uk

"There are close to 300 million people learning the English language in China, which is almost the population of the United States. And we have approximately 60000 students learning Mandarin language. They're trying to be competitive with us, ...Chinese, It's the New SpanishSan Diego Reader

In China, the real-name policy is an assault on China's growing (and powerful) blogger community. Serving as a Chinese breaking news service -- like Twitter here -- Weibos has provided alternative (and accurate) perspectives to the state-monitored

-Expanding residence rights for migrants would do more to boost consumption than fiddling with interest rates.Without formal residency rights (called "hukou") that provide access to ... If migrants had hukou or residence rights in the urban areas they worked in, ...

-There are Italians in Shanxi province?? A Mafia-style gang led by a former public prosecutor in northern Shanxi Province was destroyed and 51 gang members were detained. Meanwhile, 68 civil servants were punished for assisting the gang, China National Radio reported today. ...

-Just give them bamboo and make sure they won't die and you'll be good.

China has been sending pandas abroad in a sign of goodwill since the 1950s, and it is hoped Yuan Zi and Huan Huan will further repair tensions between Paris and Beijing that began when pro-Tibet activists disrupted the Olympic torch relay in Paris in ...

Some know how to tame worried parents: In China, it's increasingly popular to hire a fake girlfriend or boyfriend to take home over the holidays. For as little as $20 or as much as $600 a day, college students rent themselves out using China's version

By Kate O'Flaherty Customers who have pre-ordered the 12-inch doll, which was on sale for $99 on the Hong Kong firm's web site, will be given full refunds. The legal battle centred around the likeness of the action figure to the late Apple co-founder, ...Chinese firm halts production of Steve Jobs dollInquirer

Such establishments do not sell counterfeit products and prices of luxury brand goods there are far cheaper than in China. The strong yen and Japan`s nuclear accident last year also prompted more Chinese to visit Korea. To attract more Chinese tourists ...Chinese tourists fueling boom at Korea`s duty-free stores동아일보

It's a common misconception that the Great Wall of China can be seen from space, but there is another manmade object close by that is visible from 438 miles up -- a soupy mass of smog hovering over Beijing so thickly opaque that it can actually ... As if the health effects of such pollution on the Chinese population alone were not enough to cause concern from such a massive cloud of smog, this day's picture of pollution is but a snapshot of a long-term problem wherein excessive ...Latest Items from TreeHugger

Will The Chinese Twitter Become More Popular Than English Twitter? By Emma Hutchings on January 16, 2012. Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo has over 250 million registered users and is one of the most popular sites in China. ...PSFK

"When China agrees to lend pandas to a country, it's a great show of confidence and friendship," Delord told journalists. Relations between Paris and Beijing have been tested in recent years, starting with the disruption of the Paris leg of the Olympic ...

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